


Not Exactly The Picture Of Cool

by Nny



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gay Chicken, Laundry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: Every Wednesday he hauled in his sack of laundry and laid claim to the machine he’d secretly named Bertha. She was a temperamental gal, and tended to be free when he stopped by, casual visitors put off by the rust stain dribbling down her front and her tendency to stop mid-cycle and take hostages of your clothes. He had coaxed her into working, though, knew enough of her secrets to keep her sweet, and she was close enough to the row of plastic chairs that he could lunge for an intervention on anyone who made an attempt on his sweatpants and ancient shirts.





	Not Exactly The Picture Of Cool

**Author's Note:**

> With many many thanks to CB and Lissa, who are my boos

It wasn’t that Clint was intimidated by the high-tech washing machines in Stark tower, that wasn’t it at all. Natasha had taken care to explain them to him - which buttons, in which sequence, and where to put the powder and everything. It was just that every goddamn unit in every goddamn utility room looked exactly the same. Designed that way, because aside from his workshop Tony had pretty much let interior designers loose on the inside of the tower, and those interior designers had a habit of sacrificing function in the name of form. He’d found five refrigerators, a trash compactor, and something that might have been a mass spectrometer, and he’d been genuinely a little afraid that he’d try washing his clothes in one of Bruce’s science experiments by accident. 

He had a healthy respect for the kind of advanced technology that powered the tower and allowed Tony to kick so very much ass. He just didn’t so much want it near his underoos. 

There was a little laundromat a couple blocks away from the tower, down one of the endless side streets that warrened New York. It was everything Clint loved about the city - neon, and kinda ugly, and grimly hanging on to functionality in the face of newer and better and cleaner. This was a laundromat without superpowers, dammit, full of practically paleolithic washers, and the coffee machine in the corner would still give you a cup of _some_ kinda brown liquid for a quarter. 

Every Wednesday he hauled in his sack of laundry and laid claim to the machine he’d secretly named Bertha. She was a temperamental gal, and tended to be free when he stopped by, casual visitors put off by the rust stain dribbling down her front and her tendency to stop mid-cycle and take hostages of your clothes. He had coaxed her into working, though, knew enough of her secrets to keep her sweet, and she was close enough to the row of plastic chairs that he could lunge for an intervention on anyone who made an attempt on his sweatpants and ancient shirts. 

This week had been kind of a tough one. Tasha had got hurt - not badly, but enough to lose some blood, enough to present an image to add to his nightmares. Steve had been stretched thin and clenched tight, his search for the Winter Soldier keeping him up around the clock and taking his attention away from anything that wasn’t a fight. Tony was brittle and snappy and - hell, if he could aim his weapons like the barbs he spat when he was in a mood like this, he’d take Clint’s title without breaking a sweat. The mood in the tower was tense and awful and kind of exhausting, and Clint had halfway dragged his laundry down here just to avoid the miserable faces. 

He fed coins into the washing powder dispenser - he sure as shit hadn’t bothered hanging around to find his own - and fumbled the small plastic cup enough when he retrieved it to cascade white down his front. Fuck it - there was practically no one in the laundromat, and it wasn’t like he had anything of which he needed to be particularly ashamed. He hauled off his shirt, unsnapped his jeans and wriggled them off, and loaded them into Bertha with the rest of his clothes. 

There was something kinda liberating about being in his boxers in the middle of a New York evening. He wouldn’t go so far as to parade down the street like this, sure, but he hauled himself on top of Bertha and kicked his heels, raising a hand at anyone who stared into the laundromat a little too hard. Clint leaned back, his arms braced behind him, back a little arched to give the granny pressed up against the window a thrill, and almost didn’t register the guy who shuffled in through the door, head ducked low and dark hair straggling across his face. 

He sure as hell merited a second look. 

Mostly that was ‘cos the first one, you registered the faded ball cap, the layered clothes, the unkempt stubble, the uncut hair. It wasn’t until you looked a little closer that you saw the way the layered clothes hung, the way they didn’t do as much as they ought to to disguise how built the guy was under them. It wasn’t until you paused to take him in that you noticed the jaw line under the stubble, the beautiful gray eyes under the ball cap, the - oh _Jesus_ \- the gleaming metal fingers emerging from under over-long sleeves. 

Clint was… kinda regretting the almost complete nudity, now. He wasn’t Natasha. He couldn’t conceal two throwing knives, a fake passport and a beehive wig in a pair of boxers. He went instead for the thing that was always a part of his arsenal: a kickin’ set of abs and his absolute most charming smile. 

“So,” he said, absently smacking his heel back into the spot on Bertha that’d stop her throwing the hissy fit that the clunks under his ass were threatening. “Bucky Barnes, huh?” 

The guy looked hunted for a second, cast a quick look around the inside of the laundromat, assessing the threat level of Devonte - 14, skinny as a rake, switchblade in his jeans that he sure as hell didn’t know how to use and that Clint would be pocketing later - and Mrs Garcia - 90 years old, terrifying, could potentially still kill a man with her thighs. After a moment he relaxed a little, or at least his metal fist unclenched, and he walked over to where Clint was sitting. 

He moved like a jungle cat. Clint was trying very hard not to notice that. 

“I don’t know who that is,” he said, when he got close enough. Low, and a little angry, all tangled up with a little sad. 

“Steve does,” Clint said, and Barnes’ jaw flickered a little tighter. 

“I just came here to - “ Barnes chanced a look sideways at an empty machine, and Clint raised an eyebrow and looked at both of the guy’s empty hands. 

“Yup,” he said, “I can see that.” 

Weirdly, Barnes looked kind of _embarrassed_. It was incongruous with the murder scowl and the footage Clint had seen of him fighting. It made him look hunched, smaller; it made him look more _human_. He shrugged a small bag off his shoulders and unzipped it, not meeting Clint’s eyes as he shoveled another henley, a few pairs of boxers into the machine. 

Now Natasha had always insisted he was an idiot, and Clint was inclined to agree, but frankly ‘death wish’ was a better middle name than Francis, and if you were gonna be practically naked with the Winter Soldier within crushing distance of your junk, you might as well go all in. 

“What about the rest?” he said, and - when Barnes apparently couldn’t resist trailing a look like a touch all the way from his feet to the grin on his face - sprawled back further across Bertha and let his legs fall a little apart. “All the cool kids are doin’ it,” he said. 

“You fight with a bow and arrows,” Barnes said, and there was a little hint of Brooklyn in there, the barest touch of mischief in his eyes. It kinda tugged at Clint’s heart to see it. “You ain’t exactly the picture of cool.” 

“But,” Clint said, leaning back on his elbows and grinning, the whole length of him sprawled out in front of Barnes and - to be frank, and with a tip of the ball cap to Clint’s pathetic childhood history crush - free for the taking, “you _have_ heard of me.” 

“I must be cuckoo,” Barnes muttered, and Clint kinda forgot the picture he was making of himself and sat up, startled, when the guy hauled off his battered jacket and dropped it on the floor, shrugging off the hooded sweater under it and shoving it into the machine. Barnes tugged on the hem of his Henley, his shoulders bunching up all awkward and tight, and Clint reached out a careful hand and touched him where all the knots of tension were. Careful, and slow, and ready to be slapped away, and bizarrely goddamn grateful when Barnes’ muscles eased a little under the warmth of his hand. 

“You don’t have to,” he said, which was an idiot thing to say, ‘cos no one made the Winter Goddamn Soldier do anything he didn’t want to do, least of all a game of chicken with the Least Impressive Avenger. The quick look Barnes shot him was kinda fragile, though, borderline grateful, and Clint was so caught up in that expression that he almost missed the part where Barnes dropped his hands to the zipper on his jeans. 

Clint watched with fascinated attention - the hint of a rock-solid stomach revealed in flashes of moving cloth; the tight fit of the boxer-briefs the guy was sporting and everything that was outlined underneath; the effort it took for Barnes to peel the denim away from his fuckin’ impressive thighs. Barnes kicked off his battered sneakers, stepped out of his jeans and shoved them into the machine next to Clint’s, and there was - there had to symbolism in there somewhere, only Clint was - 

Right now his brain had only one track, and the engine was hurting towards Bonertown. 

“There room up there for two?” Barnes asked, his pretty mouth sliding into a smirk that didn’t fit the whole murder hobo aesthetic but sure as hell looked good on his face. Clint cleared his throat, the noise almost covering the clatter of the opening door, and he almost sprained something jerking his head up when he heard the swearing from up front. 

“ _Bucky?_ ” Steve said, flushed red and wide-eyed and lookin’ on the brink of apoplexy. “What the -” 

“Hey, Stevie,” Barnes said, standing there all casual in just a little more than his birthday suit. 

“What in hell,” Steve said, and he was getting all emotional, welling up in his big blue eyes, and Clint kinda regretted putting every single last piece of clothing he owned into just one machine because he’d made Captain America cry and, from the ominous grinding noises from under his ass, Bertha was out for revenge. 


End file.
